


In the Glow of the Vending Machine

by sentimentalscribe



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: An arcade fic that isn't about the arcade scene in the movie??, Beverly is too emotionally intelligent for her own good, Eddie is just here to look cute, For real this is actually pretty angsty but there's a happy ending!, M/M, Reddie, Richie is having what the kids call a Breakdown, TW internalized homophobia/joke slurs, These poor boys are having the roughest time jesus christ, it's more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 13:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20601533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentimentalscribe/pseuds/sentimentalscribe
Summary: “I can’t believe that I’m going to live an eternity in hellfire over a hypochondriac who would probably make sweet love to his inhaler given the chance.”Alternatively: Beverly Knows way before these chucklefucks do.Alternatively: It's the '80s in a small town and having a panicked confession to your best friend is not nearly as fun as it sounds.





	In the Glow of the Vending Machine

**Author's Note:**

> If you told me that I'd spend my entire weekend and then some writing about a couple of twelve-year-old boys' internalized small-town homophobia, I would have called you crazy, but here we are. Here we are. 
> 
> (Title is from Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift because that shit + reddie _hurts.)_

Beverly hung her head to take a drag of her cigarette. Arcade lights blinked in multicolored flashes all around her - red, green, blue, a wash of bright where she couldn’t figure out if it was soothing or nerve-racking.

She came here to think sometimes, to people-watch. Being alone was too quiet. Too much room for uninvited guests popping up and crawling around in her brain.

She had thought she was alone here in this mass of people, hidden in plain sight leaning up against the vending machine, but she was pulled from her thoughts by a yell over on her left.

“Ha!” Richie’s voice shouted, along with a _ thud _on the console of a machine. “Suck my entire dick, you owe me two dollars!”

Bev looked over. Richie and Eddie were stationed over at Star Shooter, with Richie doing some elaborate victory dance that mostly consisted of a King-Tut/Chicken-Head-Bobbing situation that she couldn’t help a sly smile at.

Spying wasn’t her style - she was mostly just too lazy to announce her presence, plus Richie probably didn’t want her interrupting. She wasn’t sure what exactly that meant, even in her own thought process, but it rang true. 

“Okay, we’re going again, not because you beat me, but because you probably cheated and I need to make things right to even out the universe.”

Richie gasped with mock offense. “Eddie! To suggest that I, a model student -”

“You’re not.”

“- who volunteers at the no-kill puppy shelter -”

“We don’t have one of those.”

“- and walks old ladies across the street for fun -”

“You literally pushed down an old person on the way in, dipshit.”

Richie shook his head sadly as if he hadn’t heard. “To suggest that such a character would cheat is just - it’s criminal. It’s tragic. You’re a tragic person.”

“You have a tragic haircut.”

“Like your parents’ tragic lack of condoms that fateful night.”

“Fuck you. We’re playing again.” Eddie slammed another token on the console.

Richie whipped a token out, too, as well as his middle finger. “Fuck you.”

They started another game, which spurred so much yelling and name-calling that it was a wonder Bev hadn’t been bothered by them earlier, and she watched idly as they went. They both played like it was the Olympics, like they’d been training their entire lives to make it to this singular moment in pixelated mediocrity, and it was undeniably endearing.

Eddie, though, got so into it that he was practically on top of the joystick, half-crawling on top of the machine as if that would help him win. (Richie, for the record, was one-hundred-percent cheating. Every now and then, he would reach around the side of the machine and sneakily pull a loose wire. Coincidentally, Eddie’s character happened to die every time this happened. Beverly only recognized it because she’d used that trick to hustle popular boys for tampon money that way.)

Among shouts of _ Barf-breather! _ And _ Douchebag! _Bev felt something shift. Instead of noticing Richie’s swindling tricks, things like facial expressions started to become more noticeable. Like how whenever Richie landed a hit on Eddie’s player, he grinned and glanced up at him, waiting for a reaction. 

He was holding himself differently, too, than he did when it was just him and Bev. He had never seemed to care much what he looked like around her, but just in the last minute, while already in the midst of playing a video game, Richie had fixed his shirt, straightened his glasses, and messed with his hair more times than she could count. Each time with another glance up at Eddie, who remained just as engrossed in the game, screeching unholy teenage boy screeches and cursing whenever he hit the wrong button.

Beverly suddenly felt out of place. Not announcing her presence now felt like spying, and she debated for a flash inside her head if she should step out of the shadow of the vending machine. This felt different. Too personal. It was one thing to laugh at ridiculous bickering, but it was another to feel herself hazily start to place together some pieces of a puzzle here that she didn’t want to complete. 

This was none of her business. She had always known something, but she didn’t know what.

Before she could intrude any more, she turned and left for the back patio. It was usually pretty quiet out there. On second thought, a little alone time would probably be good right about now. She would just have to make sure she didn’t think too hard.

-

A while later, after the cigarette had practically burnt to a stub and Beverly had considered burning herself with it multiple times out of pure boredom, the door burst open.

She jumped, almost dropping the stub, and was even more surprised to see Richie in the doorway. He slammed it behind him and roughly wiped his eyes behind his glasses, knocking them askew.

Beverly’s eyes were wide. Richie? Crying? “Uh. Hey,” she tried.

He looked down at her, startled, and immediately dropped his hand. But then he must have thought better of it and brought it up again to fix his glasses. “Bev. I -” 

His face was red and blotchy. His eyes, already so warped-looking from afar from those thick glasses, were brimming with tears. He gave up mid-sentence and turned back to the door.

“Wait!” Bev stood up. “Richie, what’s wrong?”

He stopped in the doorway, but not reassuringly enough to get Bev to back away. He was silent for a moment. Then he turned back to her, to this tiny backdoor patio out behind the arcade, and wiped his nose. “Can’t go back in there.”

Beverly was struck suddenly with all of the different ways you could know a person and still not have seen them. She’d been hanging out with Richie all summer, but she had never seen this expression cross his face before. He felt different. His posture was looser, his expression soft and vulnerable. Genuine pain shone in his eyes in a way she hadn’t ever been around to see.

She glanced at the building. “Why not? Did something happen?”

“No.” Richie sat down on the curb and stared straight ahead.

Bev knew tunnel vision when she saw it. She sat down next to him and attempted to help via a poke to the arm. It did not help. “So you’re just sitting out here studying the trash cans. Let me know if they move any time soon.”

He blinked, as if realizing what he had been staring at, and shook his head. “No. I - no.” His hands, wrapped around his knees, were shaking.

Beverly was trying to act cool, but she was terrified. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her own hands were shaking a bit. What was she supposed to do?

She tugged on the edge of her olive-green shorts that the girls liked to make fun of and flicked her cigarette butt away. Maybe she would be punished in another life for littering.

“Leave me alone,” Richie whispered. “I can’t go back there.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t fucking go back there, okay?” He rounded on her, but the bite was gone before he was even done speaking. “Just leave me alone.”

Beverly didn’t want to leave him, but for the sake of giving him space and because she had no idea what to do, she found herself standing up and backing away.

She opened her mouth to say something. She didn’t know what. She never found out, because she grabbed the door handle and swung back inside.

Back in the air conditioning, Beverly barely had a second to breathe and process whether she should have done that when Eddie appeared in front of her.

“Beverly! Have you seen Richie?”

She froze. “I don’t know.” She didn’t know why she was lying. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, he just -” Eddie paused. “I mean, some assholes came by and yelled something, but it’s not like that’s anything new, so I don’t know why he...”

Bev’s heartbeat only now slowed down enough to notice Eddie’s anxious eyes, his furrowed brow. Hesitant step. 

“I don’t know,” he finished.

This face on Eddie was foreign, too. He had always been a worrywart, but this was different. She’d seen the two of them fight, too, and still. 

After a furious mental battle with herself, Beverly pointed behind back at the door. “He’s out there.”

Eddie didn’t leap for the door like she’d expected. Instead, he took a step forward, hand outstretched, then slowed, taking a deep breath to steady himself.

He looked up at Beverly. “Wait. Why didn’t you say so?”

“I don’t think he wants company. Eddie, what really happened?”

He looked at her, creases deepening in his forehead, then turned and opened the door without a word.

Beverly followed out of pure instinct, then immediately regretted it. Out here in the light, Richie was still where she’d left him, only more curled in on himself and shaking with sobs.

“Richie! What the hell?” Eddie rushed to his side.

Richie shoved him aside. “Get the fuck away from -” He sat up and saw who else was there. “Beverly?”

The glare of betrayal burned like a brand. “I’m sorry, I thought -”

Richie stood and backed away so fast that he tripped over his own feet. He quickly regained his footing and readjusted his glasses, trying and failing to stealthily wipe tears away.

“I’m fine,” he snapped, and made to run away, but the only exit was back into the arcade, so he just tripped over his feet again.

“Dude. You have snot on your glasses.”

Richie whipped them off and cleaned them. “Fuck you.”

“Are you okay?” Eddie glanced nervously over at Beverly as he asked and she couldn’t tell if it was in solidarity or just wishing she would leave.

Richie was pacing now, muttering _ Fuck you fuck you fuck you _ under his breath.

“Beverly, can you give us a second?” Eddie didn’t look away from Richie as he spoke. He was so tense that his shoulders were practically touching his ears.

Despite her concern, she knew what it was like to want privacy. “Okay.” She backed away into the arcade, motioning to Eddie that she would be nearby if needed. The last thing she saw was Eddie grabbing Richie’s arm with yet another expression she had never seen him wear.

The door latched behind her and she stared out at the arcade. 

“Shit,” she whispered to herself.

If it were anyone else, she would just shove them into a get-along shirt and tell them to get over themselves. Hell, if it were Richie and Eddie on a normal day, she wouldn’t have worried. But there was something in the way they were looking at each other, something in how hard Richie was crying, that seriously freaked her out.

She got the feeling that she knew something she shouldn’t. She still couldn’t articulate what.

But there were some benches nearby, and she could stand watch on the door from afar. She couldn’t think about why, but this was too important for the Bower boys or any other shitheads to bust in on.

-

Richie seriously couldn’t breathe with Eddie’s hand clutched around his arm like that. He shook it off and tried to get away, but this was an enclosed back patio and there was nowhere to run.

“Richie! Seriously, what the fuck?”

Richie continued his stream of _ fuck you_s to the air in lieu of an intelligent response. He had literally no escape plan, no idea of what to do, only the massive certainty that he was digging his hole deeper and deeper with each frantic step. Fuck fuck fuck.

“Chill the fuck out. Do you want me to have a stress-related aneurysm?”

“That’s not a thing.”

“You don’t know that! I could be the first! They’re always publishing new shit in medical journals and -”

“Eddie, shut up! Just shut up!”

It was silent for a second. Richie halted in his pacing to fully face him. 

Eddie was drawn back, chest sunken in like a wounded animal. His best friend, eternally fresh-faced and ready to smirk, split from him by a cloud of hurt.

“Jesus. I’m sorry, I just.” Richie wrapped his arms around himself, only to drop them a moment later. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. “Just leave me alone.”

“Are you kidding me? No. What the hell is going on with you?”

“Nothing! I’m fine.”

“You’re literally crying, fuckface.”

Richie had hoped that ignoring the tears would make them less noticeable. He wiped away streaks that had pooled near his chin, down his neck in that uncomfortable sticky reminder of his inability to keep it the fuck together. “Sorry, it’s just that your mom broke my heart when she died of every kind of diabetes at once.”

“Not funny, asshole. Come on, I can’t go home alone or Bowers will murder me, so you need to get smart so I don't die.”

“Fuck off.”

Eddie backed him up slowly against one of the fences, so now Richie was literally cornered. “What are you so afraid of?”

Richie choked. He would have done literally anything in the world to not be having this conversation, to not be here in this grimy back patio, to not feel… that way he felt when he looked at his best friend.

Nothing was worse than peeling back the layers. Nothing was as terrible as letting people see what was underneath. The jokes and asshole-ishness and middle fingers were there for a _ reason, _goddamn it. So why weren’t they working?

“Do you ever feel trapped?” he heard himself ask.

Eddie blinked. Apparently this wasn't the type of conversation he'd expected. “You mean like in the library basement?”

“No, between your mother’s thighs, dipshit.” Richie took a deep breath. It shuddered more than he would have liked. “I mean, like, in this town. In general.” _ In your mind. In your own crawling skin. In everything no one can know. _

Eddie shrugged, his foot tapping rapid-fire. “Maybe. I don’t know. Why do you care?”

Richie wanted to rip his hair out. Why did he _ care? _ Gee, three wild _ fucking _ guesses. “Why do _ you _ care? Just leave me alone!”

“No!”

“Eddie, I’m serious, just -”

“Why were you crying?”

“Fuck you!”

“You don’t always have to do this!” Eddie couldn’t back him up any farther, so he just kept getting deeper into his personal space. “Richie, I’m your fucking friend and if you think I don’t care why you’re sobbing your lungs out on the sidewalk -”

He didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly they were kissing.

Richie’s hand clutched around the collar of Eddie’s polo - how it got there, he had no idea - his eyes screwed shut as their lips smashed together. So much exploded inside his brain that he couldn’t even begin to process it, but all he knew for that millisecond was that this was exactly, exactly what he had wanted. His entire life, this had been missing. That little voice in his head he’d been shoving to the corner had been so fucking right.

Was that good? Maybe. Probably not. This was probably actually terrible. He couldn’t really think that hard with Eddie’s nose gloriously bumping into his.

As quickly as it had began, it was over.

And the gravity of exactly what the fuck he had just done came plummeting down on him.

Eddie stood there, shock slapped across his face. Not leaning away, just frozen. 

Richie had never so loudly screamed within his own head. What the fuck? How the fuck? What the fuck what the fuck what the _ fuck - _

“Oh,” Eddie said. He didn’t move, but blinked hard a few times.

“Holy - oh, holy shit, I’m so sorry, Eddie, shit -”

“Richie, what was that?”

“That didn’t happen, that was an accident, holy shit just forget that ever happened.”

“What was that, Richie?” Eddie repeated. He was looking at the ground now, eyes darting around, looking for the answer. Alarm bells blasted through Richie’s head.

“I should go. I need to go.” Richie tried to shy away, but Eddie cornered him again. “I should go.”

“Richie.”

He was literally struggling against Eddie’s grip at this point. “Let me go!”

“Can you just listen for two seconds?”

Richie finally stopped looking everywhere but at Eddie and let his eyes flick over to his face.

He didn’t look angry. Surprised still, but more like he was trying to piece together a puzzle. “Why did you do that?”

_ Take another three wild fucking guesses! _“I don’t know! Just lay off, okay?”

“I didn’t mind.”

Record scratch. “...What?”

Eddie huffed, crossing his arms. “Are you serious? Are you going to make me say it again?”

“Say what?”

“Jesus, that I like you!” His voice reached a mountaintop pitch, then dropped down to a normal volume (at least, for him). "But, I mean, I’m not a freak. Everyone is like that with some of their friends. You just don’t talk about it.”

Richie stared at this dumbass whom he’d chosen to sell his immortal soul for. “No, Eddie! Everyone is not fucking like that with their friends! When was the last time you saw Bill macking on Stanley?”

“Oh.” Eddie didn’t seem as surprised as he should have been. “Oh, fuck, I’m a fucking fairy, aren’t I?” His hands went to his head and he paced in a hurried line. “I’m going to get diseases and die in a ditch and go to hell and don’t get me started on the lesions and cancerous infec -”

“No one’s getting cancer, dipshit.” Richie’s heart was still pounding so fast he could barely focus. “But, um, seriously. Did you mean that?”

“About going to hell? Yeah, probably!”

“No, about -” Richie couldn’t say it. “... You know.”

Eddie shrugged and stepped away, unconvincingly casual. “Yeah. I guess. You?”

“Yeah.”

They stood there for a moment, taking each other in. Richie was so far beyond the world of reality at this point that he was sure flying unicorns with rainbows shooting out of their asses would pop up any second now.

Eddie scratched at his cast like he did when he was nervous. “Uh. Do you think the others will care?”

“Care? How would they even know?” The fact that there was something to even know about was insane. Wait, was there actually a thing? Was this anything other than a conversation? Were they _ together? _ He had no idea how these things worked! _ Your mom _ jokes and porn did not a relationship expert make!

“They know about everything. Even Ben knows what kind of drama everyone’s in.”

“Okay. Well, what would we say, then?”

Eddie shrugged. “I think Beverly said something about having a cousin who was… like that. Maybe she would know?”

“I’m not asking a _ girl _about this!”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s a girl! This is a _ man problem_.”

“I think they have girl versions, too.”

“What? Girls can’t be fags.”

“Yuh-huh, I read it somewhere.”

“Where in the fuck would you have read -”

“This is all beside the point!” Eddie held up his arms. Richie could tell he was debating whether or not he needed his inhaler. “I can’t fucking believe this. This is just -” Ah, he went for the inhaler after all.

“I can’t believe that I’m going to live an eternity in hellfire over a hypochondriac who would probably make sweet love to his inhaler given the chance.”

A pointed glare while Eddie sucked in the medicine. “You do not want me to respond to that, four-eyes.”

Despite everything, Richie laughed. And after a second, Eddie laughed. 

And Eddie kissed him.

And it was so fucking surreal in that moment, the actual lips of Eddie Kaspbrack, his best friend and loser extraordinairre, on his that Richie would have bet money he was dreaming.

But he wasn’t. And when they pulled away from what Richie was hoping was a good kiss on his part, Eddie was still there. Annoying as shit and beaming anxiously.

“Okay,” Richie said, back still against the fence. “Not where I thought the day was going to go, but sure.”

-

Beverly checked her watch. She desperately hoped she hadn’t just abandoned two of her best friends to the wolves of their own stupid boy anger.

She had just been about to go get them herself when the door slowly opened.

Richie wasn’t crying anymore, but his face was still slightly red. But so was Eddie’s.

If she had blinked, she would have missed it, but for a second as they eased open the door, she saw their hands clasped together. They dropped it as soon as they stepped into the light, but it was enough.

Richie caught her eye, and for a mortified second, he froze. Beverly could see every possible way the foreseeable future might play out, and she knew Richie could see it, too. She didn’t want any of the futures that would make him look as terrified as he was right then.

So she smiled. And she waved and she nodded. And she breathed out a sigh of relief at the same time as Richie.

She had always known something, but she hadn’t known what before.

And it was still none of her business.  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! PLEASE kudo/comment(!!)/transform into a terrifying creature of ethereal unknowingness/bookmark if you enjoyed! I also write a lot of solangelo, fierrochase, and catradora if you want to read any of that. Hope you have a great night!!
> 
> twitter: sentimentalscr1  
tumblr: sentimentalscribe


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